Ocean City, MD – (December 19, 2016): A lot can change in 20 years, as is evident in the evolution of the Mayor’s Open House on New Year’s Day. The event, which has been a community custom since 1997, has celebrated various town departments, community partnerships and elected officials, past and present.

With the 21st anniversary of the event approaching, Mayor Meehan believes a new tradition is fitting. “For 20 years, the Mayor’s Open House has offered the perfect opportunity for our citizens to meet with the elected officials that serve our community,” commented Mayor Rick Meehan. “The event has changed over the last several years, moving from City Hall to the Performing Arts Center. Along with meeting elected officials and community members, the event has become an opportunity to allow residents and visitors to enjoy an extraordinarily venue and great local talent, free of charge.”

Scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on New Year’s Day, residents and visitors are invited to enjoy a brief meet and greet with the Mayor and City Council members, before taking a seat for the featured concert. The meet and greet will last approximately 30 minutes, and will also include several of the town’s community partners. At 1:30, the theater doors will open, allowing guests to take their seats before the 1:45 p.m. performance begins. This rare, free concert will feature Delmarva Big Band and Bryan Russo’s Bargain Scotch.

“I can’t think of a better way to welcome the New Year then enjoying a free concert in Ocean City,” continued Mayor Meehan. “No matter your music preference, we invite you to bring your family and enjoy the afternoon in our stunning auditorium with performances by extraordinary local musicians. It’s going to be a great show!”

Participating in the event’s meet and greet are several of the town’s community partners, including the Ocean City Beautification Committee, the Ocean City Development Corporation, the Art League of Ocean City, the Chamber of Commerce, the Ocean City Life Saving Museum Society, the Beach Patrol and the Community Response Team. The New Year’s Day Concert is free, with light refreshments provided by Center Plate. For more information, please contact Jessica Waters at 410.289.8967.

Surveillance footage obtained by Fox 5 shows a man identified as Digiacomo walking up to Ali and punching him on the side of his head. Ali was at a jukebox when he got punched, according to Braselton police.

'It's murder, I mean the guy just go up to him, a defenseless guy doesn't even know what's about to hit him,' Assistant Police Chief Lou Solis said.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A 3-year-old boy being taken on a shopping trip by his grandmother was killed in a road rage shooting on Saturday when a driver opened fire on the grandmother’s car because he thought she “wasn’t moving fast enough at a stop sign,” police said.

The boy and his grandmother were at the stop sign in southwest Little Rock on Saturday evening when a driver apparently angry about the delay stepped out of his car and opened fire, police said. The boy was struck by gunfire at least once, they said.

The grandmother, who wasn’t struck, drove away and called police from a shopping center.

Police arrived at the shopping center and found the boy in the car outside a JCPenney department store. The boy was taken to a hospital, where he died shortly after.

Today in US History 1998

President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives who approved two articles of impeachment against him. They charged him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. He was only the second president in US History to be impeached.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — In a stunning development, the North Carolina law widely derided as the “bathroom bill” appeared to be on its way out after it tarnished the state’s reputation, cost it scores of jobs and contributed to the Republican governor’s narrow loss.

Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper announced Monday that legislators will hold a special session to repeal the law known as HB2 that limits protections for LGBT people. Repealing the law would be a remarkable sign of cooperation for the incoming governor and the GOP-controlled legislature. Just last week, lawmakers called a special session and stripped Cooper of some of his authority when he takes office next month.

The moves started in the morning with the Charlotte City Council voting to undo its own local nondiscrimination law enacted in early 2016. It was that ordinance that Republicans blamed for the statewide law.

We discuss a preview of January`s Earnings releases and how massive the gap down in most of these stocks will be when they report in a month. There have already been two earning`s guide downs from industrial companies this past week in UTX, and HON.

But with the run up in financials and energies for the last month we are going to experience big $5 chunks taken out of these stocks and massive after hours and pre-market gap downs that will cause entire sectors to sell off during earnings in January. It is just going to be brutal, expect 500 point down days in the Dow during this upcoming earnings period.

You have seasonal stocks that selloff every year like Apple and Amazon, as the 4th quarter is their best by far for sales and revenues. And you have energy companies with exorbitant p/e ratios like COP, XOM, CVH that are priced for $115 dollar oil not $55 oil that 4th quarter earnings releases are going to bring some fundamental realities back to investors of how overpriced these stocks are right here.

You have "dogshit" stocks like C, BAC that are serial underperformers in the financial sector along with WFC with its legal problems and operating distractions of the past year, and JPM which has moved too far entirely too fast and the amount of Monkey Hammering Selling Smack downs of these financials upon reporting is going to be outright brutal for investors stupid enough not to have taken profits before earnings.

Underfunded government pensions to the tune of $1.3 trillion, with a gap that just can’t be filled, is the ticking time bomb facing the US economy which faces dramatic cuts in public services - and potentially riots reminiscent of Athens six years ago - according to former Federal Reserve advisor, and President of Money Strong, Danielle DiMartino Booth.

As she picks apart the danger signs with the US on the precipice of recession, it’s the impending pensions crisis that keeps her awake at night, sharing the gloomy sentiment laid out in an extensive March 2016 Citi report titled "The coming pensions crisis."

With few people taking part in what little recovery the US has had, and given how stretched pensions are, checks are going to have to be written from Washington sooner than you think, DiMartino Booth told Real Vision TV in an interview. “The Baby Boomers are no longer an actuarial theory,” she said. “They're a reality. The checks are being written.”

Texas' 36 electoral votes for Trump pushed him over the edge at around 4:30 Central Time, even though two rogue electors' defections deprived Trump of one of those votes. That gave Trump 304 total electoral votes.

Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday and secured his election as the 45th president of the United States, as the latest – and perhaps last – stop-Trump movement failed to gain traction in state capitals.

A fervent push by anti-Trump forces to persuade electors to defect had turned the normally mundane civic procedure into high drama.

But Trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win, as representatives tabbed to cast ballots in accordance with their states’ Nov. 8 decision mostly adhered to the election results. With several states still voting, Trump had 304 votes and Hillary Clinton had 169.

BALTIMORE– The Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA) today announced six new insurance companies have been licensed to do business in the state of Maryland since July. This brings the grand total to fifteen new companies coming to Maryland to do insurance related business in 2016. The MIA also approved applications for four companies (already licensed to do business in Maryland) to sell additional insurance products.

“We continue to welcome insurance companies to the Maryland marketplace and to have existing companies expand their product offerings to Maryland consumers,” said Maryland Insurance Commissioner Al Redmer, Jr. “Our goal is to provide Maryland citizens with choice when it comes to insurance matters. Our strategy is to be proactive in the area of economic development as it relates to this very important sector of our economy.”

The MIA granted Certificates of Authority to the following insurance companies:

ISDA Fraternal Association, State of Domicile: Pennsylvania, licensed as a Fraternal Benefit Society

Censtat Casualty Company, State of Domicile: Nebraska, licensed as a Property and Casualty Insurer

GPM Health and Life Insurance Company, State of Domicile: Washington, licensed as a Life, Accident and Health Insurer

Security First Insurance Company, State of Domicile: Florida, licensed as a Property and Casualty Insurer

Sompo Japan Fire and Marine Insurance Company of America, State of Domicile: New York, licensed as a Property and Casualty Insurer

United Heritage Life Insurance Company, State of Domicile Idaho:, licensed as a Life, Accident and Health Insurer

President-elect Trump defended Michelle Obama on Saturday after the first lady said her husband's hopeful approach to leading America is no more, thanks to his incoming successor.

"Michelle Obama said yesterday that there is no hope," Trump said to boos at his final "thank you" tour event in Mobile, Ala., on Saturday afternoon. "But I assume she was talking about the past, not the future. Because I'm telling you, we have tremendous hope. And we have tremendous promise and tremendous potential. We are going to be so successful as a country again. We are going to be amazing. And I actually think she made that statement not meaning it the way it came out. I really do."

In a CBS News clip Friday, Mrs. Obama said the country is struggling to cope with the change in presidents.

"Now, we're feeling what not having hope feels like. Hope is necessary, it's a necessary concept," Obama told interviewer Oprah Winfrey. "Hope" was a campaign slogan used by her husband.

Russia's ambassador to Turkey was assassinated while giving a speech on Monday by a gunman who yelled both "Allahu akbar" and "don't forget Aleppo" during his attack.

Ambassador Andrei Karlov was attending an art gallery in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, when a gunman opened fire. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Karlov died.

"Today in Ankara as a result of an attack, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Turkey, Andrey Gennadyevich Karlov, received a wound from which he died," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. "We regard this as a terrorist act."

The shooter shouted "Allahu akbar" according to the Associated Press, which had a photographer on the scene for the event. The gunman was shot dead by Turkish police, according to a Turkish outlet NTV.

SNOW HILL – School lunch just got a little more exciting at Snow Hill High School.

In an effort to generate interest in the school’s lunch program, the school has rebranded its cafeteria. In addition to a new name — it’s now the Regal Eagle Café — the facility offers a variety of new lunch possibilities.

“We tried to change the culture of school lunch, providing kids with a variety of options,” Principal Kim Purvis said.

On Monday the school hosted a ribbon cutting to celebrate the cafeteria’s new image. Students were greeted with a sign above the entrance to the Regal Eagle Café as well as festive background music and a number of new lunch options. Instead of the usual two choices available to those buying school lunches, the cafeteria now offers seven options. The side of the serving counter that previously hadn’t been used now stores a selection of “grab and go” lunches developed by Odtis Collins, the school system’s food services director.

KILLEEN, Texas (CN) – A Texas judge blocked a school district’s removal of a “Charlie Brown Christmas” decoration that contained a Bible verse Thursday, hours after a nurse’s aide and Texas followed through on threats to sue over its removal.

Dedra Shannon and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton were granted a temporary restraining order in Bell County District Court on Thursday afternoon.

The lawsuit came two days after the school board declined to reinstate the decoration in a 6-1 vote.

The board refused to overturn Trevino’s decision to tell Shannon to take down the door decoration showing “Peanuts” character Linus reciting to shepherds a verse from the Gospel of Luke about the meaning of Christmas, an image from the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” special.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Judge Jack Jones ruled Thursday afternoon that the door display should be put back up with the line, “Ms. Shannon’s holiday message.”

In Separate Cases Defendants Each Received Over $3.5 Million from USDA for Food Stamps Traded for Cash

Baltimore, Maryland – On December 15, 2016, Mohammad Shafiq, age 50, of Gwynn Oak, Maryland, and Muhammad Sarmad, age 40, of Nottingham, Maryland each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit food stamp fraud and wire fraud in connection with separate schemes to illegally redeem food stamp benefits in exchange for cash.

The guilty pleas were announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge William G. Squires, Jr. of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, Northeast Region; and Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as the Food Stamp Program, is administered by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), together with state agencies. The program funds low-income individuals to allow them to obtain a more nutritious diet. In Maryland, the program provides eligible individuals with an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card called the Independence Card, which operates like a debit card. Recipients obtain EBT cards through the state Department of Human Resources, then use the EBT card to purchase approved food items from participating retailers.

His mom is 101-years-old and this son knows how important it is to treasure every memory possible. He was traveling with his mother in the snow and had stopped the car to turn around. But before he got going, her car door flew open and out she stepped in the snow.

Click "READ MORE" below to see her reaction to the the above video being on the news and also her birthday in October when she turned 102!

After electors cast their votes for president and vice president, the results will be printed on a "certificate of vote," which is then mailed or delivered to the National Archives, according to the New York Times. The certificate is also sent to Congress.

At least one elector in Texas has said he will not follow his state's vote and will vote against Trump, but a rash of faithless electors is not expected. The Federal Register states 99 percent of electors have cast their vote according to how their state voted in the election.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch has released 31 pages of records from U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealing that the Department of Homeland Security has given Somalis “community engagement tours,” including security briefings, in secured areas at least three major U.S. airports – Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Columbus, Ohio.

The records came in response to a May 2016 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which sought records, documents and communications regarding a “Community Engagement Tour” in Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on February 18, 2016.

The briefings provided to the Somali groups were so sensitive that in 14 instances the agency redacted portions of the records under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption (B)(7)(e), the law-enforcement “risk circumvention” exemption, which reads:

Exemption 7(E) of the Freedom of Information Act affords protection to all law enforcement information that would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.

In another instance, Customs and Border Protection exempted under (B)(7)(e) a portion of a February 16, 2016, “Minute by Minute Agenda” provided during a tour/briefing of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP). The material that was withheld from Judicial Watch as too law-enforcement sensitive – but provided in full to the Somali group – included a section entitled: “TSA Overview — Processing [Redacted].”

BALTIMORE — Coast Guard Sector Maryland-National Capital Region rescued four people from the water and assisted with the recovery of 15 overturned sailboats in the Severn River near Annapolis Sunday.

Watchstanders at Sector M-NCR received a report from the event manager of Severn Sailing Association stating 22 people had fallen into the water off of 15 small sailboats during a race at approximately 2:20 p.m.

It is with deep sadness, we announce the passing of retired Deputy Sheriff Stanley Cylc. Stanley served the citizens of Worcester County and the residents of Snow Hill for over 30 years. Stanley was a police officer for the town of Snow Hill and later with the Worcester County Sheriff's Office. Our thoughts are with his family at this time. Funeral services will be held this Thursday, at Spence Baptist Church, Snow Hill, Maryland beginning at 11a.m. Interment will be at the Spence Church which is located at 7603 Spence Church Road, following the service.

While women are one of the fastest-growing gun-buying demographics in the country, their numbers in Detroit are growing so fast that a gun instructor in the city describes firearms training as the new “therapy session” for women who have been targets of crime.

The Detroit News reports that “self-defense” is the driving force behind the surge in female gun buyers. Firearms instructor Nneka Lawrence says some of the women who come in still have tears in their eyes from an attack or assault they suffered while unarmed.

Lawrence is a black woman who has been teaching firearms training courses for ten years. She teaches at Action Impact and says:

Our gun classes are like therapy session for these women. Some of them come in crying because they have been attacked before, raped, or robbed. Others want to simply protect themselves. The two things that come up in our classes is home invasion or being carjacked.

One of Lawrence’s recent students was 63-year-old Nita Brown, who lives on the Northwest side of Detroit. Brown said, “I lost my husband last year after we were married for 36 years. Because I’m home now by myself and we see a lot of seniors who are being targeted in home invasions, I do want to take it upon myself to learn how to use a gun.”Another recent student said:

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is defending the FBI against allegations that the bureau mishandled investigations of email hacks of Democrats and focused too much attention on Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

“I can tell you that this investigation was taken seriously from the beginning,” Lynch said in an interview with CNN that airs Sunday.

She was responding to complaints raised by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in an op-ed published by The Washington Post on Friday. Podesta, who had his Gmail account hacked during the campaign, argued that “something is deeply broken at the FBI.”

He pointed to reports that FBI investigators failed to warn Democratic National Committee officials last September after discovering that Russian hackers were attempting to infiltrate the party’s email systems. At the same time, Podesta noted, investigators were traveling the country to interview witnesses as part of the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s private email server.

The Pentagon faces “significant” cyber security challenges as the U.S. military becomes reliant on electronic networks and infrastructure to conduct its operations, according to the Defense Department’s inspector general.

The Pentagon inspector general reviewed nearly two-dozen unclassified government reports addressing a “wide range of cyber security weaknesses” in Defense Department systems that were issued in fiscal year 2016, concluding that the department needs to overcome major hurdles in cyber security.

The report comes amid increased concern about cyber attacks from China and Russia.

During an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday, former Hillary Clinton campaign chair, John Podesta, refuses to say if the American presidential election was a free and fair election.

Podesta was asked point blank by Todd if it was a free and fair election.

“Do you believe this was a free and fair election?” he asked.

Podesta dodged the question, citing Russian hacking as interference in the election process.

He also made sure to point out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.

“Well, look, i think the Russians clearly intervened in the election and I think that now we know that both the CIA, the director of National Intelligence, the FBI all agree that the Russians intervened helped Trump and that as they have noted this week, NBC first revealed that Vladimir Putin was personally involved with that” he said. “So, I think that people went to the polls. They cast their votes. Hillary Clinton got 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump. But, Donald Trump is claiming the Electoral College victory and tomorrow the electors will get to vote.”

Todd called him out for not answering the question, then asked it again.

An Al Qaeda operative incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo has confirmed what Judicial Watch has been reporting for years, that a Saudi Arabian “rehabilitation” program that supposedly reforms jihadists is really a terrorist training camp. The U.S. has released dozens of Gitmo captives to the comical jihadist rehab and earlier this year considered sending another, senior Al Qaeda boss Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, a dangerous Saudi national with a U.S. college education.

During a hearing before President Obama’s Gitmo parole board, al-Sharbi said “you guys want to send me back to Saudi Arabia because you believe there is a de-radicalization program on the surface, true. You are 100 percent right, there is a strong externally…a strong de-radicalization program, but make no mistake, underneath there is a hidden radicalization program.” The testimony was delivered months ago, but was recently declassified by the Department of Defense (DOD), which maintains that al-Sharbi is a committed jihadist and threat to the U.S., its interests and allies. The panel denied al-Sharbi’s petition for release, but has granted many others recently.

In his quest to clear out the prison and close it, Obama has embarked on a frenzy releasing droves of terrorists jailed at the U.S. Naval base in southeastern Cuba. More than 100, including Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, have been released to the Saudi rehab program, officially known as the Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center. It specializes in “spreading the concept of moderateness and rejecting immoderate way of thinking” by using art therapy, video games, exercise and sports to de-radicalize terrorists. Obama has praised the bogus Saudi terrorist rehab program, even though the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency disclosed years ago that many of the Gitmo detainees who rejoin terrorist missions after leaving the military prison returned to “the fight” after graduating from Saudi rehab.

PolitiFact rated just over 15% of Donald Trump’s campaign claims as true, while marking 51% of Hillary Clinton’s as such, according to PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman.

“I’ve been tracking every @PolitiFact fact-check of the 2016 candidates since they announced,” posted Sharockman on Twitter just one day before the election. “I think this will be the final score.”

Attached to the post was a screenshot of a spreadsheet, showing the details of every “fact-check” of the presidential candidates during the election campaign.

Despite Trump’s campaign being announced over two months after Clinton’s, 312 fact-checks were made on Trump’s claims, compared to just 196 of Clinton’s.

Out of 312 fact-checks, PolitiFact determined that just 15 of Trump’s claims were true, with 34 classed as “mostly true.”

46 claims were classed as half-truths, while the rest of the fact-checks were marked as either “false”, “mostly false”, or “pants on fire.”

This left Trump with a 50.64% rating of false claims, with just a 15.71% rating of true claims, according to PolitiFact.

In comparison, Clinton received 38 “true” fact-check ratings, 62 “mostly true,” and just 25 “false” or “pants on fire” ratings — a substantial amount less than the 158 false or pants on fire ratings given to Trump.

Just 12.76% of Clinton’s campaign claims were marked as false, with 51.02% being marked as true.

This year the Left’s annual War on Christmas has taken a bizarre turn with a Washington Post op-ed claiming that the Virgin Mary’s purity is offensive to victims of rape.

In an article titled, “Our culture of purity celebrates the Virgin Mary. As a rape victim, that hurts me,” Ruth Everhart explains that especially in the Advent lead-up to Christmas, Mary becomes a problem for many Christians because of her pristine purity.

Mary “set an impossibly high bar,” Everhart writes. “Now the rest of us are stuck trying to be both a virgin and a mother at the same time.”

As a rape victim, this has been especially difficult for the author, she says, which led to her becoming a pastor, in order “to come to terms with Mary’s story.”

Everhart writes that she doesn’t blame her sense of ruin “entirely” on the Virgin Mary. In fact, it isn’t really Mary’s fault, she states; it’s the Church’s for manipulating Mary into a model of purity.More here

President Barack Obama used his final press conference as president to slam partisan news sites as “domestic propagandists” that allowed fake news to flourish and bring about Hillary Clinton’s shocking election loss to Donald Trump.

“If fake news that’s being released by some foreign government is almost identical to reports that are being issued through partisan news venues, then it’s not surprising that that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect,” he said echoing his warning in the closing days of the campaign that the internet had become a “dust cloud of nonsense.” The press conference came a day after Facebook announced it would team with fact checking sites to police its news feeds.

Several journalists and media thinkers picked up on the trend of fake news in the month leading up to the election. Laura Davis of the Annenberg Media Center told a University of Southern California panel on Oct. 11 that a “filter bubble” was responsible for the proliferation of fake news.

Media organizations published about 200 individual stories, analyses, and op-eds mentioning “fake news” and the campaign between Oct. 1 and Election Day, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of Lexis Nexis data. Many of those stories homed in on how the bubble mindset encouraged by ideological herd thinking led Trump supporters to fall for convenient narratives.

In the month following Donald Trump’s victory news organizations published 3,600 pieces about the “scourge” and “plague” of fake news and the role it played in tilting the scales against Hillary Clinton.

ARLINGTON, Va. — More than 44,000 volunteers turned out even in the icy, cold and rainy weather to carefully lay 245,000 remembrance wreaths at t Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday, as part of “Wreaths Across America.”

It was the 25th year that wreaths have been placed at Arlington National Cemetery. The theme for this year’s event was #SayTheirNames.

The wreaths are placed at grave sites nationwide to honor and remember fallen veterans and their service. After placing a wreath, volunteers are encouraged to take time to read the headstone, to honor the memory of that fallen hero and to say the veteran’s name out loud.

For Julie Hunter from Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, this has become an annual pilgrimage. The experience, for her, is a somber one.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which claims more than 24,500 members nationwide, is establishing a secular display in the Iowa Capitol Rotunda to counter a traditional Christmas Nativity scene installed by Christians.

"It is inappropriate to have a sectarian religious display in the heart of state government," said Dan Barker, the organization's co-president. "We'd much prefer that the seat of government be free from religion — and irreligion. But if a devotional Nativity display is allowed, there must be 'room at the inn' for all points of view, including irreverence and free thought."

The no-religion display is scheduled to be installed at 11 a.m. Saturday and remain in place until Dec. 28. Tami Wiencek, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, confirmed Friday that state officials have granted permission for the alternative display in the Capitol Rotunda. "We are treating everyone the same," she said.

Similar displays have been placed at other state capitols by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The no-religion display is a response to a manger scene installed at the Iowa Capitol on Monday, which depicts the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. The Thomas More Society, a religious liberties legal group, has signed a contract with the Department of Administrative Services that spells out how the display will be handled. Supporters of the Christmas display said expressions of religious faith have been "somewhat frozen out of the public square" and the Nativity scene is an expression of free speech.More

President Obama delivered a long-winded lecture to the press on Friday about its “unfair” treatment of Hillary Clinton during the campaign, drawing ire from mainstream journalists.

The president, who was delivering his final 2016 news conference, implied the media’s “obsession” with Clinton’s leaked emails did more damage to the former secretary of state than the Russian cyber attacks against Democratic political networks.

“This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage,” Obama said. “So I do think it is worth us reflecting how it is that a presidential election of such importance, of such moment, with so many big issues at stake and such a contrast between the candidates came to be dominated by a bunch of these leaks.”

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party reacted harshly to the involvement of a State Department-financed nonprofit in efforts to defeat Netanyahu during last year’s elections.

The Senate on Wednesday found that the State Department provided more than $300,000 in funds to the nonprofit OneVoice “to support peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine over a 14-month grant period ending in November 2014.”

OneVoice in turn supported and financed V15, short for Victory 2015, an activist movement that worked to defeat Netanyahu during last year’s election.

V15’s strategy room was based out of OneVoice’s Tel Aviv office space, a headquarters visited by this reporter during the height of last year’s controversy surrounding the initial disclose of the State financing to One Voice.

The Senate’s investigation did not find evidence that any U.S. government monies were directly utilized by OneVoice to influence the elections. However, as JTA pointed out, OneVoice utilized “campaign infrastructure and resources built, in part, with State Department grants funds to support V15” during the election season.

The Times of Israel reports on Likud lawmakers’ reactions:

The inquiry findings “prove conclusively that there was a crude, clear intervention from the US State Department in the internal affairs of Israel,” MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) said in a statement. “This is scandalous, a callous attempt to replace the government of Israel through funding from the US government.”

OneVoice allegedly previously deleted the State Department’s logo from the list of “partners” on its website.

A State Department official deleted emails that included information about a secret campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the country’s last election, according to a Senate investigatory committee that determined the Obama administration transferred tax funds to anti-Netanyahu groups.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed in a massive report on Tuesday that the Obama administration provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that waged a clandestine campaign to smear and oust Netanyahu from office.

OneVoice, which was awarded $465,000 in U.S. grants through 2014, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was first accused of funneling money to partisan political groups looking to unseat Netanyahu. This type of behavior by non-profit groups is prohibited under U.S. tax law.

The investigation determined that OneVoice redirected State Department funds to anti-Netanyahu efforts and that U.S. officials subsequently erased emails containing information about the administration’s relationship with the non-profit group.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Some presidential electors in Maryland support changes to the Electoral College after seeing two Democratic presidential candidates in the last 16 years win the U.S. popular vote, but lose the election.

Salome Peters is one of Maryland’s 10 Democratic electors. She believes the Electoral College system should be changed, saying, “We should go with the popular vote, period.”

Virginia’s Democratic members of the Electoral College are all strong supporters of Hillary Clinton. What they’re less sure of is the process they will be a part of next week.

On Monday, the electors will meet at the Virginia Capitol to cast their votes for the next president of the United States. Usually a ceremonial step in the road to the presidency, this year’s meeting of the Electoral College has drawn intense scrutiny.

Drug firms have poured 782 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills into West Virginia over the last six years, and shipments have doubled into Wyoming County, where the overdose rate leads the nation, a Charleston Gazette-Mail investigation found.

West Virginia is at the forefront of the country’s opioid addiction epidemic and, in 2015, had the highest rate of death due to drug overdose. Since 1999, opioid overdoses have quadrupled.

"These numbers will shake even the most cynical observer," former Delegate Don Perdue, D-Wayne told the Gazette-Mail. "Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect. There is no excuse and should be no forgiveness."

By acquiring previously confidential drug shipping sales records from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Gazette-Mail was able to take a close look at the huge pill problem in the state. The paper sued for the findings, and drug companies and their lawyers fought to keep the information secret.

Just because we're talking about nonprofit organizations, doesn't mean some executives aren't bringing home some pretty paychecks.

While producing our annual List of the 25 highest-paid executives at Greater Washington’s 501(c)(3) organizations this year, I wanted to delve deeper into nonprofit pay.

So, I pored through the 990 tax forms of every organization on all three of our nonprofit Lists — including the 50 largest, the 25 largest that are regionally focused, along with the 25 highest-paid executives. I put together a database that included the highest-paid person at each of those organizations (excluding only those with either no 990 filed or zero paid employees). This resulted in a list of 80 people.

Here are some quick facts about the 80 men and women who were the highest paid person at their organizations:

30 percent of them are women.

The average compensation of those women was $453,456.

Two-thirds of the women work in a District-based organization, while a fifth work in Virginia and about 12 percent in Maryland.

The average revenue of the organizations employing these highest-paid women was $276.9 million.

The largest organization with a highest-paid woman was American National Red Cross, which made more than $2.7 billion in revenue, and paid President and CEO Gail McGovern a total compensation of $556,772.

Among the 70 percent of this list who are men, the average compensation was$813,237.

Nearly half of the men work in District-based organizations, about 38 percent in Virginia and another 12 percent in Maryland.

(WASHINGTON) — The countdown clock on the White House transition is winding down as specifics about Donald Trump’s inauguration are being finalized.

Here’s a rundown of what is known about the schedule so far:

Easy pick of a theme

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The Trump team announced that it’s going to stick with the campaign slogan that helped get the real estate developer elected, saying that “Make America Great Again” will be the inaugural theme.

“The theme is very simple,” Trump inaugural chairman Tom Barrack told ABC News. “The idea is to have a cross cut of harmony of America and normal Americans that reflects on them, not on the power and prestige of this man.”

In 2009, “A New Birth of Freedom” was the theme for Barack Obama’s first inauguration, and “Faith in America’s Future” in 2013.

Technicalities

Some of the most basic logistics of the inauguration are set forth by the 20th Amendment of the Constitution.

The official transfer of power happens at noon Jan. 20, which falls on a Friday this time around.

Inauguration Day is a federal holiday in Washington, D.C., and parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia, but only for people who are regularly scheduled to work on that day. D.C. public schools have off that day, as do local colleges in the area, including Georgetown University, George Washington University, Catholic University of America and American University. They have cancelled classes that day. Howard University has not listed the inauguration as a school holiday on its academic calendar.

One of the inaugural traditions is that the outgoing president accompanies his successor to the Capitol, and that is expected to happen again this year. President Obama has said he will escort Trump and he will watch him take the oath of office, then the Obamas will leave on Marine One.

Trump’s inaugural committee announced via Twitter that there will be a welcome rally and parade, though officials didn’t specify when.

Dunkin' Donuts used to actually offer a donut called "The Dunkin' Donut" and it came with a handle that you could hold onto to dunk the donut in your coffee (per the chain's name).

Now dunking a donut in coffee doesn't quite hold the popularity that it used to (and is more difficult these days due to the tall and narrow to-go cups that coffee tends to be served in now), but back in the day, you'd actually sit down with a wide-rimmed cup of coffee that was a perfect fit to ease your donut in.

The chain didn't initially offer the donut when it first started. So how did the donut with a handle come to be?

Just for arguments sake, lets say the Russians did hack into the DNC and leak their documents. The Russians didn't write the documents, they didn't cheat Bernie Sanders, The DNC did it all. The fact that the documents went public doesn't change the corruption of the Democratic party. Blaming the Russians or anyone else is just smoke and mirrors to distract people from the real truth of the Democratic party's criminal and corrupt activities.